What Would Happen If You Tried To Find All The Ones That Got Away?

Chapter Sixteen: Amie

I’m not entirely sure I should admit this, but I had originally intended not to write a chapter about Amie. There were many reasons. I didn’t want to piss off anyone, I didn’t want to rehash a past so recent, but in the process of writing this book I realised that it wouldn’t be fair to skip a crush simply out of convenience. There was not one girl I had a crush on that I hadn’t tried to contact. Not one. Not one single girl I hadn’t been able to find, not one single girl who I hadn’t at least tried to get an interview with. Not even when I knew the odds were not in my favour, not even when I thought I was going to have a restraining order against me, or when my family members were potentially against the idea.
It wasn’t fair to skip Amie and not just cause there wasn’t a crush I hadn’t skipped, but because the story of the crush on Amie brings this book into a nice little circle.

Amie was a friend of Alyce’s – Stu’s girlfriend who’d moved in with us for a while and is to, to this day, one of my closest friends – I’d met Amie one Australia Day when I got home from a party at Josh’s. Stu and Alyce had friends over. A few too many drinks later and we were all skinny dipping in the pool. I noticed how attractive Amie was long before the skinny dipping though.

Long dark hair, kinda quiet, despite the copious amounts of alcohol being consumed. She was nice. And cute.

The Amie front went quiet for a long time. Occasionally Alyce would have friends over, and occasionally Amie would be one of them. Other than mentioning to Sare that I found Amie attractive, nothing came from it. She had a boyfriend and because of that I wouldn’t even try anything.

Then one random night, nothing special about it, Josh was trying to get Alyce to set him up with someone. Alyce went through her friends in her head.

“Amie’s just broken up with her boyfriend,” Alyce told us. “I could try and set you up with her.”

Seizing the opportunity I quickly interjected.

“Wait, Amie’s single?” I said, perhaps a bit too fast, as all eyes in the room were suddenly on me.

“Yeah,” Alyce told me. “Her and Dane broke up a few weeks ago….”

Well, this was quality information. Information I would take into some serious consideration. Unfortunately, that same night I got drunk and my feelings towards Amie were blatantly clear to all that were present.

Hilariously in the months that followed we would refer to as ‘the night of five beers’ (it does not take a lot to get me drunk… that night five beers was about the limit).

So began the months of hanging out with Amie. Having no boyfriend to speak of she began to hang out our place more often and we became friends. Good friends. Only problem I was, I wanted to be more than friends, but I wasn’t entirely sure she did.

Around this time, Sangas’s girlfriend got an internship working at a hotel in Hamilton Island for two months, and so we would hang out almost every night, and Amie would be there. And Stu and Alyce too.

One night during this period Sangas, myself and Josh were at the club, and I was talking with them about the Amie situation.

“I honestly think you have a chance with her,” Sangas told me. “I reckon if you made a move on her, you’d find she feels the same way.”

“I don’t think you have a chance,” Josh offered, before taking another swig of his beer. Having known Josh since we were twelve however, I knew his knowledge on the opposite sex extended only slightly further than mine. More importantly, I knew he understood women as little as I did.

“I’m just a nervous I’m on the friends ladder,” I started. Sangas looked confused. I grabbed a cardboard drink coaster and began drawing a diagram on the back to explain. “We all have two ladders. A Friends Ladder and a Relationships Ladder. Now, below the ladders is the Abyss. You with me?”

Sangas nodded.

“Problem is, we aren’t always certain which ladder we are on. So if a guy likes a girl, and wants something more than friendship, all he can really do is make a move on her. Now if he is on the Relationships Ladder, then all is well. If, however, he is on the Friends Ladder, this is what we call a ladder jump. Now the girl has two choices, she can either let him on the Relationships Ladder and the ladder jump is successful. The more likely outcome, however, is that he is kicked in the head and falls into the Abyss. Life in the Abyss is a period of self-loathing, embarrassment, and of course utter awkwardness with the girl in question, occasionally you’ll crawl out of the Abyss, but the only ladder in reach is the Friends Ladder,” I finished, Sangas sat there mulling over my diagram for a while.

“Not really, I read it on a website, it’s Master Ladder Theory. It’s true though, now the question is, which ladder am I on?”

“Well from how you two act towards each other, I honestly think you’re on the Relationships Ladder,” Sangas bravely claimed. Something he would continuously tell me whenever I doubted this was the case.

“I think I might be,” I eventually decided. “But to win her over, I want do something romantic. I’ve always talked about doing big romantic gestures in the past, but I always bailed. I think it’s time for that to change.” Sangas agreed. Josh got another beer, but he shouted me and Sangas one too so he was forgiven.

I continued to spend time with Amie while formulating my plan for a romantic gesture. We’d go to bars, or to get ice cream, or to watch a movie. We designed a magnificent ash tray out of an old broken chair a former housemate had left behind, a microwave base another housemate had left behind, and several extemely large one litre sized empty cans of beer yet another housemate had left behind. Amie smoked, I didn’t.

I paid for everything we did which, looking back, my credit card wasn’t too happy about. But you live and learn.

She came to the Party For No Reason, and a few of us went back to use the Jacuzzi at our place afterwards. It was in the jacuzzi that she asked me about the star I’d named a few months earlier.

You see there’s a place on the internet, the International Star Registry, where you can pay money to have a star named after whatever you want. In a previous act of brilliance I’d paid $50 to name a star “Liam Smith’s Arse Star” so that future generations would look on to it and laugh. I still have the certificate the International Star Registry sent me framed on my wall.

Amie told me she thought the idea of buying a star for a girlfriend or wife was terribly romantic and she hoped someone would buy a star and name it after her one day.

So I did. With her birthday only a few weeks away I paid the money for the star and when I received the certificate and the rest of the documents I had the certificate framed and wrapped the rest of documents in a nice little present for her.

Amie had a party at her house for her birthday. She’d told me weeks earlier she wanted me to wear my fluro yellow suit, that I’d worn to the Party For No Reason, to her party. I showed up, gave her the present which she excitedly opened and was extremely grateful for.

That night I got drunk, very drunk, and was happy. A few of us went back to ours again for another dip in the jacuzzi while Amie and few of her friends went out clubbing.

The next day I was hung over. Not too hung over, but enough for me to sleep for an extended period of time. When I surfaced out of my room, Alyce was standing by the back door,having a smoke whilst on the phone to Amie. I tried to vaguely make out the conversation while I rummaged through the fridge to find a highly caffeinated soft drink that I normally kept the fridge stocked with.

After finding one, I stood up and took a big gulp of it before looking to Alyce who had just finished her phone call. She was laughing.

“I never laugh at you when you have a hang over,” I said. Alyce stopped when saw me, her expression changing, whatever she had been laughing about it both obviously wasn’t me and was something she didn’t want to tell me.

Stupidly (or wisely, I guess considering the circumstances) I tried to get the info out of her while I sobered up. After a few minutes of awkward of questioning she finally confessed.

“It’s Amie,” she told me. “She slept with Oscar last night.”

I heard this with full mouth of soft drink and almost chocked on it. Trying to make as emotionless reaction as possible, I stumbled back to my room, and quickly grabbed a t-shirt and pulled on the first pair of jeans I could find. Avoiding my housemates I grabbed the keys to my car and left. I started to drive. I didn’t care where. I just wanted to be far away.

I’d been so certain that there was something more than friendship there. And now….. here I was, in the Abyss.

But the time I stopped driving it was night. I pulled over to the side of the dirt road in the middle of nowhere. My phone beeped, it was a message from Sangas. It was Sunday night. We always went to the club on Sunday night. I did the maths on how long it would take me to get to the club from where I’d driven, and told him I’d meet him there in an hour and a half.

I had a beer at the club. This surprised Sangas, I never drank beer, or anything alcoholic on a night we’d meet at the club. I had to work the next day, over all it had never seemed like a good idea. But tonight was different. Tonight I’d been rejected by the only girl in a LONG time who I’d be CERTAIN I had a chance with. Alcohol, any type of alcohol seemed like a good idea.

“Amie,” I said, and finished off my beer surprisingly fast, and for a brief moment, contemplated immediately getting another.

“Oh,” Sangas had responded, then after a moment’s silence he was game enough to venture further. “So…. the star didn’t go down too well?”

“The star went down brilliantly, amazingly, she’d wanted one for ages. It was good present, from a friend,” I said: the kiss-of-death words guys really don’t want to hear from girls they hope to some day be romantically involved with. Then as after thought I added: “Oh, and she slept with Oscar last night.”

And that was that. After months of Sangas trying to convince me I had a shot every time I doubted I did, after getting closer to her, the final outcome was obvious: she only saw me as a friend. Always had.

We talked for a bit more, about anything but Amie. I had another beer, but nothing that was going to get me wasted. Then, both of us having to work the next day, we ventured home. Or so Sangas thought.

Instead I drove home, which was only two streets away, left my car there, and walked back to the club.

Once back at the club, alone, I got another beer. Then another, and another, and another. I lost count soon after that. I drank myself into oblivion. Alone. My mind processed the events of the latest crush until my brain had difficultly processing much.

Things from here get a little fuzzy, I remember stumbling home from the club at around 3am, the same time the bar had closed. I vaguely remember the walk taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I remember stumbling to the front door and attempting to get inside. For some reason, sticking my key in the lock was extremely difficult.

I tried to formulate a way inside. My bedroom window was right next to the front door. Odds were, it’d be fairly easy to break. Then I have to sleep on broken glass. Didn’t seem like the greatest of ideas.

Then in a brilliant moment of drunken inspiration, I realised that I left one of the back doors of my car unlocked, and I could sleep that in that, protected, for the rest of the night. I started to walk back down towards my car.

I’m still not entirely clear on why I never made it there, but a few hours later I woke up just as the sun was rising, with a blazing headache. I was on the front lawn. My body ached, grass did not feel like the equivalent of a mattress. I tried to piece together the night before.

The front lawn was halfway between my car and the front door. I must’ve figured the walk was too far and decided to rest on the lawn. Now my clothes were grass stained, my neck was sore, and I was VERY hung over. The only time I would be more hung over in the future would be after the Year Six Reunion.

I made my way inside and had a shower. Still depressed over Amie, I kept to myself for a couple of weeks. I stayed in my room with five seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation on DVD to watch.

I reflected over the last year. How much time had been taken up by stressing over girls who I’d developed feelings for…. it seemed to make things so complicated.

The answer came during an episode in which the character Craig Manning decrees that the coming year he’s going to be a monk – metaphorically speaking – he’ll focus on school, on work, on his music. Girls will never come into the equation.

Thus my year of monastic life began. No potential girlfriends, no crushes, nothing, zip, zilch, squat.

I’d focus on work, some “stupid boy project” that I could throw myself into.

And so we find ourselves coming in a nice little circle, for two months after this decision, I would find myself talking with Jamie and Jason who I still blame for planting in my mind the idea for this book.
And now, well now I had one last girl to find, and one last interview to do.

Getting in touch was Amie was easy. I knew I only had to make a phone call and I was fairly certain that she’d be okay with meeting up for the book. So certain that I almost ended up going to Sydney because of it.

I was procrastinating, I think in part because I didn’t want this year long quest to be over, but in the end I knew it was time. Then Alyce surprised me one night when I was over at her and Stu’s new place.

“Amie’s moving to Sydney,” she told me. I froze. I should probably get an interview before that happens.

“When is she leaving?” I asked. The response caught me off guard.

“Next week.”

I floored it home, and grabbed my phone to call Amie.

“Hey,” she said, a little surprised to see my number come up on her Caller ID. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” I replied. It was true, I was in a brilliant mood, and it was set to improve. “So I’m writing this book about tracking down and interviewing every girl I had a crush on.” I told her. She laughed.

“Oh yeah…. how’s that going?” Well, this was just the reaction that I was hoping for.

“Fantastic actually, in fact I’m almost done. I was interviewing them in order, and now I’m up to the last one…… which is you,” Perhaps I should’ve felt more nostalgic at this point. This would be the last time I ever had to make one of these phone calls. Unless in ten years time I decide to do a sequel.

“Hey, that’s really cool. I’m actually moving to Sydney next week, did you want to meet up sometime before then?”

“Yeah…. you free Monday afternoon? I’ve got the day off work,”

“Sounds good.”

We arranged to meet at the same coffee shop where I met the majority of the other crushes. Afterwards I hung up the phone and sat there staring at it for a moment. In a few days time, this entire journey would be over.

I’d misjudged how much time I had when I was going to meet Amie and found myself running a few minutes later than I’d intended. I parked my car dangerously close to the law firm I used to work at. (The prospect of running into Abigail after her last email did not exactly appeal to me). As I walked up to the metre to pay for parking I noticed someone had dropped a $20 dollar note on the ground.

I picked it up and looked around the parking lot. There was no one around, and it was rare for people to be paying for parking just before 5pm on a weekday. After a few moments of indecision I placed the money in my wallet and paid for parking.

The surprise of the $20, made me a few minutes late to meet Amie, but knowing our history, I figured she wouldn’t mind.

Sitting down in front of her, we talked about the book for a bit, and her move to Sydney. She’d gotten an internship at a record company, she’d gotten a place with a friend, everything was going well.

She asked if there any set questions to be asked, and I proudly pulled out the question sheet from my book of notes.

“Did you ever know I had a crush on you?” For once, I was extremely curious on what the answer to this question was. Because I can honestly say I didn’t know if she had figured it out from something I’d done or said, or if she just plain hadn’t known until she’d heard about my reaction to her sleeping with Oscar.

“I knew the entire time,” She informed me. “Alyce had mentioned it.”

“Oh,” I responded, honestly a little surprise, though I suspected Alyce and Amie being such good friends.

And that was the moment.

Perhaps it was the fact that I’d just spent a year meeting every girl I’d had a crush on, or at least contacting them in some way shape or form. The ones that had gone better than I expected, which admittedly had been Emily, and for argument’s sake even Paige (she hadn’t sued or issued a restraining order for example), the ones I was genuinely happy to learn were nice people still, Jessica, Kirsty, Danielle, Angie, Sarah, even Kari.

And it was the last name – Kari – that probably contrasted what I was feeling now and what I was feeling then so completely.

Aside from Emily and Lana, and perhaps even Danielle, who certainly knew I had a crush on them when I asked them out, Kari was one who had definitely confessed to knowing the whole time I had a crush on her.

And she had been nice about it, she knew, in retrospect she pushed me away when felt appropriate (figuratively, not literally), and kept me at arm’s length while still trying to retain some semblance of friendship.

Amie, it dawned on me in that moment, hadn’t. She retained the semblance of friendship, sure, but if she knew how I felt the entire time, certain things that happened suddenly took on a different context.

Her calling me for a lift home when she’d gone out drinking with friends for example. This I hadn’t given a second thought to at the time. After all, it was open invitation to my friends and family because of my crappy sleeping patterns that I always offered and many of them took me up on. I never minded doing it and especially not for Amie because it meant I got to spend time with her.

There were times that’s ONLY when I’d hear from her though.

Or those times she wanted to go out and drink and hang out and do stuff together, and during the night she’d admit she was broke and at time I didn’t give it a thought because I was paying for everything.

Remember what I said earlier? We’d go to bars, or to get ice cream, or to watch a movie. I paid for everything we did which, looking back, my credit card wasn’t too happy about.

Maybe I was going to a dark place here… but had she been doing all that simply because she could? I mean, I’d let her do that, so if she was taking advantage it was largely my own fault but still.

I shook my head. Maybe I was over thinking it.

I looked down at the next question.

“You know, some of these questions are kind of easier to ask if I haven’t seen the crush in the last ten years,” I told her. Then, already knowing the answer to the next question, I continued. “Did you ever have a crush on me?”

The answer was no. I’d surmised that. I didn’t even have to ask it, but it was for the book. And the answer hadn’t ever bothered me until now. Well, other than the crushing moment when I found out the feelings weren’t reciprocated that is. If she’d known the entire time how I felt, knew the entire time she didn’t feel the same way, and knew that I was paying for everything and doing everything for her because I had a crush on her…

No, I did not want to be THAT GUY. That guy who calls himself a nice guy but gets bitter because the girl he likes doesn’t like him in return. Those god awful Men’s Rights Activists who claim women are the fruit of all evil.

I knew they weren’t. Most of my best friends were female.

That was the thought that tripped it. The relieved some of the pressure of my self hate and me me realise I maybe wasn’t being totally irrational.

Simply put: Most of my best friends were female. I had numerous examples of how normal friendship worked. It was why I was convinced Amie actually liked me, she wasn’t acting like my other female friends would around me.

She wasn’t acting like a girlfriend either. With clear distance from the situation she was acting like someone I wasn’t a huge fan of.

We would hang out a lot, but they were only things she wanted to do. Often I’d organise something and she might have even expressed interest saying she wanted to come… but would be a no show and wouldn’t answer her phone or respond to texts when I called. Leaving on my own at places and events and even restaurants because she simply didn’t want to do it, didn’t tell them that, and thought the best answer was to not respond when I sent “hey, where are you?” text or tried to call.

I looked back down at the questions, focusing on the present again.

“Do you have a crush that you think of as the one that got away?”

I had it pegged as Dane, I was certain it was him, she’d just broken up with him when we started hanging out. I was sure of it, I mean, he came up in conversation so much that I had just sort of assumed he was ‘the one that got away’. I was wrong.

“Oscar,” She replied, almost soon as I finished asking the question. Good old Oscar. That lovely chap she’d slept with and had proven to me that she had no romantic feelings for me whatsoever.

“You know, it was after you two hooked up that I realised there was no chance of you and I ever happening,” I told her.

She half smiled.

“I know,” She said quietly. That made sense. I sorta dropped off the radar with her after that night.

In a weird way, I got a sense of relief that it Amie had experienced the same sort of feelings I had for her when nothing eventuated with Oscar. If nothing else was achieved from the entire meeting, it was that this nugget of information had given me peace and closure on the situation.

I know what you’re thinking – Isn’t it a bit harsh to wish ill feelings on someone?

It’s not like that though. It was just a realisation that shortly after I’d been rejected by a girl who I honestly thought felt something for me in return, she herself had experienced the same thing with someone else, but this time it was from the rejected person’s perspective.

In fact, for a moment I felt bad that someone else would have had to experience what I felt.

The situations were probably closer than I had realised before this interview. Specifically, Oscar probably knew Amie liked him given the fact they were sleeping together, but didn’t feel the same way in return. In a way, I guess, he was using her for sex.

As for how Amie acted towards me… well… she let me pay for everything. Called me up in the middle of night asking me to come pick her up. Yet wouldn’t show for things I wanted to do. Would say she’d meet me somewhere and not show up. Then still call and ask to hang out the next night, or for a lift home.

Like I said earlier, I encouraged it, I just wanted to hang out with her so I would jump at those opportunities purely because she had shown some sort of vague interest in me.

Anyway, the interview continued.

“Is there someone you had a crush on, then realised that weren’t who you thought they were?”

Amie’s answer was Jade.

You see, after nothing truly romantic had happened with Oscar, Amie had met a girl named Jade. The two had entered into a relationship, which in turn didn’t exactly end on the best of terms.

Yes – the first crush in this book that had actually turned gay, or at least bi-sexual, after I had a crush on them.

When Stu had found out about this, his response was:

“So apparently even the thought of having sex with you is enough to turn a girl gay?” Bastard.

Back to the interview.

The interview which honestly… was bothering me, and not just for the revelations opening up in my mind about this girl, but because of how Amie was acting. She was constantly checking her phone every few minutes, and honestly the conversation had lasted maybe ten minutes before this had started. She was looking around as though she was looking for someone.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I’m meeting someone shortly and I don’t want to be late.”

Well that’s the first time that had happened. I mean, the other girls I’d met up with had other stuff on, Kari was getting for her date, Danielle had plans that afternoon, Camille was going to meet her boyfriend. Yet this was the first time I felt like I wasn’t a priority at all, like I was being squeezed in and she didn’t really care. All the other times we talked for at least half an hour or more (sometimes even a couple of hours), catching up like old friends and Amie seemed to be ready to ditch me in a matter of minutes.

I told her how I excited was to be finishing this project, Alyce had even mentioned the book to her… did I really matter to her so little?

I found myself rushing to meet her schedule. Old habits die hard I guess.

“Who was the first person you had a crush on?”

Amie thought for a moment. She came up with two answers, similar to what Angie had responded.

“John Travolta, when I was ten years old,” She told me proudly. “He was hot in Grease.”

She frustratedly tried to remember her first crush on someone she actually knew. She couldn’t completely remember his name, so for convenience we’ll just call him Larry.

Larry had been in her Grade Five class and they’d gone to a school disco together. She was eleven years old. Ah, young love. Obviously Larry made a lasting impression, with her barely being able to remember him now.

Then again, a lot of people had to think good and proper about the first person they had a crush on.

The final question about whether she thought I was crazy when I’d contacted her about the book seemed to be a mute point – after all, she’d been present for the Party For No Reason, and I vaguely remember her being at our house with Alyce when I’d told everyone how I’d come up with the book idea in the first place.

Like I said, Amie brings the story in a nice neat little circle, back to the beginning.

Suddenly Amie was grabbing her handbag.

“I should go meet my friends,” she said standing up, I looked a little surprised. Aren’t I your friend? “Did you have many more questions?”

I was taken aback. The honest was I didn’t, but genuinely these interviews normally lasted much longer than 15 minutes or so. Even Kari had talked to me on the phone for 30 minutes while getting ready for her date.

Amie thanked me for the interview and promised to keep in touch while she in Sydney – she didn’t, for the record. I told her I’d send her a copy of the book should it get published. I thanked her for coming and not being scared off by the whole concept, she laughed and said she still liked the whole idea.

She said goodbye and left.

I sort of sat in there in stunned silence for a moment. My journey was over. In a way… it had almost ended on a fizzer.

Had that really been a girl that broke me so badly I got drunk and slept on my front lawn? Had she always been like that and I’d never noticed? Was it that she actually didn’t like me and the whole book idea and felt a fifteen minute conversation in a coffee shop would be fine?

Other things clicked into place as well. To be honest upon hearing Alyce had told Amie I’d had a crush on her from the get go had bothered me, and I had a brief flash of anger towards her for that… I realised she actually tried to be a better friend to me than I’d given her credit for.

I hadn’t mentioned here, but there were times when Alyce seemed to be genuinely annoyed Amie and I were hanging out which at the time was utterly confusing because she was encouraging it so much in the beginning.

At some point she’d switched though, and when Amie randomly called me to hang out or do something or pick her up Alyce had gotten annoyed. Now I realised why… she knew Amie knew how I felt, she knew Amie didn’t feel the same way, and she didn’t feel right with how Amie was handling the situation.

If anything, she was trying to protect me. Like Cat, Sare, Kirsty, Josh, Ben, Stu, and even Lily once upon a time (before I developed feelings for her and ruined the whole thing) Alyce was acting like a friend truly does.

Sure I’d never had a crush on the majority of people listed here (and I was 10 when I had a crush on Kirsty, she didn’t know, so that doesn’t count).

Amie hadn’t really been my friend.

And for someone who cared so little for me, I wasn’t going to let them ruin this awesome moment.

For the first time since I started interviewing the crushes at this coffee shop, I hadn’t actually gone and ordered something for the entire interview. Potentially because the interview had only lasted a total of fifteen minutes. Spying a tip jar I sauntered up to the counter.

“What can I get for you?” Asked the friendly face behind the counter.

“Nothing actually,” I replied happily. “I was actually here but didn’t order anything, but I found $20 lying on the ground a few blocks from here, and I thought why not do a good deed.” I pulled out the money which I’d found the earlier and placed it in the tip jar. The person behind the counter looked stunned. “Have a nice day.” I finished.

And just like that – my year long quest to track down and interview every girl I’d ever had a crush on was over.

As I walked back to my car I reflected over the last year, and the crazy adventure that had taken place. It seemed so long ago now that I’d been sitting and talking with Jason and Jamie and I’d come up with the idea.

The memories of the butterflies racking my stomach when I first called up Sarah – the first girl I had a crush on – and how those nerves had lessened over time. That’s not to say that I wasn’t nervous when I contacted the later girls, but as time had worn on my confidence had grown, so much so that when the night of the Year Six Reunion came I didn’t miss a beat when I was confronted with a room full of people I hadn’t seen in years.

The things I’d learnt…. the book itself had been fairly therapeutic in a strange way. I’d always looked back on certain things in a certain light, I’d always thought Camille would never remember asking me to dance in that class. I’d always thought Trent had been the Prince Charming Emily had imagined him to be.

Looking back the hardest girls to get over had been the ones whom I’d imagined to be different than they were. The version of Abigail in my head was most certainly not a girl who’d be openly opposed to the book. Paige….. well, that entire situation sort of speaks for itself. Amie had made such an impact because I’d convinced myself she felt some feelings of reciprocation and learning not only had she not but had used my own feelings to her advantage actually made getting over easier.

The past year had changed me, I’d obviously become more confident, and all those girls that I used to have a crush on, a lot of them seemed more real now. In a nice way, but not in an “I’ve gone and fallen for them all over again” sort of way. I had a new found respect for them.

So, despite many friends theories, I did NOT get together with any of the girls in this book. I would also like to take this time to point out that I didn’t get restraining order put out against me either, nor did I put myself in danger of getting physical harm inflicted upon me by the boyfriend of a former crush.

I’d often heard the phrase that high school was some of the best years of your life. I didn’t entirely agree with this, but then again I wasn’t popular in high school. Looking back over the last year, I can say without a doubt it was one of the best of my life.

I said in the beginning that I still blame Jamie and Jason, and I do but in a good way, because if they hadn’t planted the idea, then this entire thing would never have taken place, and for that I will always be grateful.